


Light A Match

by CloudDreamer



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Arson, Bullying, Child Neglect, F/F, False Accusations, Gambling, Lesbophobia, Rich Kid, Rumors, Slurs, Substance Abuse, This isn't an AU as much as it is my thoughts on Jude Perry as a high schooler, Underage Substance Use, and growing up as a queer teenager in whenever the hell she did that idk, high school is hell, i love myself a disaster lesbian, people are talking about jude perry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:20:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24859054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudDreamer/pseuds/CloudDreamer
Summary: Jude Perry is a menace. At least, that's the word on the school yard, when they think she can't hear.She can hear.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	Light A Match

Jude Perry is a girl that burns hot. Everything she does, she does it with fire, with speed, with passion. She’s never been one to sit on the sidelines when it’s so much more fun to dig her hands in. She’s a lover and a fighter, and she’ll break your teeth if you tell her to slow the fuck down. The boys whisper about her on the school yard. They say she’s kissed their girls, that she kicked the ass of the biggest and meanest of the bullies, and now they’re not sure whether to be afraid of or a little bit in love with her. 

They don’t get a second glance from Jude. She’s gone faster than they can say she’s a bitch, faster than they can call her a dyke. She’s too busy listening to a distant song, a melody that runs as hot as she does, following it wherever it leads her. Or maybe she’s making herself the boss of it, when she spray paints crude words onto the teacher’s car. And the administration can’t do shit to her, not when the Perry name’s on the school’s new gymnasium. She laughs as they threaten her with detention, with suspension, and she grits her teeth at the lectures. Whatever cruelty life tries to throw at her, she knows she can take it, cause she’s meaner. 

At least, that’s what she thinks when she’s a dumb shit kid. She never lights up anything bigger than some pretentious twat’s favorite notebook, anything more dangerous than a cigarette, but she sees herself as the monster of the school anyway. Young, foolish, drunk on her own power and this pretty white girl’s stolen booze, borrowed without permission from her drunkard of a mother. 

She gets questions all the time, dumb ones like, how are you like this, can I be like this, and smarter ones like, where’s the gasoline, or would you pass me a cigarette, Jude. Sometimes she answers them, sometimes she laughs and laughs till there isn’t any laughter left in her throat. 

Sometimes the girls tell their parents she made them, she hunted them down, when they see her hand down their shirt, even when they came to her. They begged her, really, told her all their dark and nasty secrets, how lonely they were, how much they wanted out, out of their small lives and out of this town. How much they hated this place. It’s such a shame when they get their worst wants get plastered all over the bulletin board. How whispered confessions about rehab and eating disorders in the back of her fancy new car become the new hot rumor. But they never sicken of her, always come crawling back. They tell her Jude, you’re such a menace, and she says, darling, we all play our parts. Yours, she says, is to crawl back to me drunk and begging for a do over. And mine is to burn. 

She could watch candles for hours. She loves the way the flame eats up the wick and the wax, how they melt into nothing. She wonders if that’s how her skin would look, in the heat, and they whisper she’s crazy even more when she tries. They don’t understand, she figures, they don’t feel the call. 

It’s not that her family doesn’t give a shit about her, except for the part where they don’t. They throw money at the Jude Problem and hope it goes away, buying her all the toys she asks for to keep her happy, keep her from spilling their dirty secrets to all the vultures threatening to close in. They’re so defensive of her, it’s almost sweet. Sickeningly so. They know the stories the teachers tell are true, but her worst behavior’s only ever rewarded. Like she’s doing this for attention. They couldn’t be wronger. 

Jude sucks in the smoke, holds her breath as it fills her longs. It’s disgusting, but she doesn’t do this for the taste. She exhales and watches the shapes the wind carves her smoke into. So temporary. The flame eats up the cigarette so quickly, leaving her to reach for another one, and her latest fling puts her hand on hers. Jude glares, with enough heat to send anyone with sense running, but this girl is concerned about Jude's fucking health. She clearly lost her mind years ago. 

She’s a pretty thing, though, all smiles and a nice face. All curves, all places to put her hands and her lips. Freckles scatter across her never broken nose like a constellation. Her laugh is like wind chimes, and Jude wants to shatter them. There’s only one song she wants to hear, and that’s the crackle of the flame. This girl, she won’t last long. She doesn’t have the passion, doesn’t have the commitment. She won’t burn her ties to run with the apex predator of this town. She’s got a reputation to protect, one that Jude knows exactly how to drag through the dirt. If she has to. If she wants to. 

It’s a gamble, with her, and damn, does she like to gamble. She tosses coin into the ring like she’s got it to spare, and the scion of the Perry line sure does. Of course, she wouldn’t play fair. What part of her screams fair?

She’ll stack the odds in her favor, higher and higher, till she’s got mountains of cash she doesn’t need taken bit by bit from unlucky fools, and she’ll put it all in just for how it stings when she loses. Just for the smile on the winner’s face, and then the frown when they see her. As they realize they might’ve won the bet, but they’ll pay for it in bloody ink. 

Jude burns as hot as the sun, and she’s sure she’ll burn forever. And she screams with joy and with agony for that.


End file.
